§ C
The standard rebuttal
"You can't compare Norway to Australia."
We agree. That isn't the argument.
When this comparison is made publicly, the industry response is consistent: different geology, different industry structure, different country, different era. All of that is true. None of it is the point. The point is narrower, and harder to deflect.
What we are not arguing That Australia should copy Norway's tax code line for line. That the Bass Strait and the North Sea are the same basin. That a country of 5.5 million and a country of 27 million should run identical fiscal policy.
What we are arguing That the terms a sovereign government sets with a multinational gas company are negotiable — and that the industry's claim that any tightening will cause projects to leave is not supported by what has happened in countries that have tightened.
01 "Norwegian fields are easier — different geology." Some are. Many are not. Snøhvit sits 140 km offshore in the Barents Sea above the Arctic Circle, with subsea wellheads in 250–345 m of water and a 143 km pipeline to a liquefaction plant on Melkøya. Aasta Hansteen is in 1,300 m of water — Norway's deepest. Johan Castberg came online in 2024 in iced-over waters 100 km north of Snøhvit. None of these are the easy fields. They were developed under the 78% combined rate, and they were developed anyway.
02 "Norway has Equinor — Australia doesn't." Correct. Norway built a state-owned operator in 1972 (then Statoil) as a deliberate act of policy. Australia did not. That is a choice the Australian Parliament made — and could revisit. The Norwegian SDFI, which holds direct state equity in producing licences without being a company, is a separate instrument again. Both were designed at a desk. Neither requires geology to copy.
03 "The companies will pull out if you tighten the screws." The companies operating on the Norwegian shelf today, under the 78% combined rate, include Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, Aker BP, Wintershall Dea, Vår Energi — the same names that operate on the North West Shelf. They have not left. They have, in several documented cases, lobbied hard against rate increases, lost the argument, and stayed. Norway raised the special tax in 2022 in response to windfall prices. Investment continued.
04 "It's a different era — you can't change the rules now." The PRRT was legislated in 1987. The uplift rate at the centre of the current debate (LTBR + 15pp, compounded, no time limit) was set then and has not been revisited despite a Treasury review (Callaghan, 2017) recommending change. "You cannot revisit the settlement" is not an argument from physics. It is an argument from inertia.
The Norway comparison does one job on this site: it forecloses the move that says nothing else is possible. Once that move is foreclosed, the live question is the one § A & § B set out — what would Australia choose, and from whom.